The Fate of Certified Safety Engineers (posted by netizens, from Sohu)

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I attended a training session these past two days, and the director from the Tianjin Work Safety Supervision Bureau gave the following explanation regarding work safety certification: 1. The Work Safety Law enacted by the National People’s Congress (before its amendment) did not contain any provisions related to work safety certification, which is why the examinations were suspended. 2. In December 2014, the new Work Safety Law came into effect, which contains provisions related to work safety; from a legal perspective, work safety is mandatory in certain industries and is essential. 3. The Policy and Regulation Department of the State Administration of Work Safety submitted a proposal to the State Council, but the State Council disagreed. 4. The reason the State Council disagreed to hold the exams was that various ministries were seeking to amend laws through the National People’s Congress in order to make the qualifications required by their respective departments mandatory, and it was not possible to allow such a move. “For safety engineers, ‘the exams should first be suspended, and then the qualification level should be reduced.’ There are two reasons for the downgrade: one is inherent deficiencies, and the other is that several ministries are in conflict with each other. First, congenital deficiencies: According to Article 24 of the new Work Safety Law, entities that produce or store hazardous materials, as well as mining and metal smelting enterprises, must have registered safety engineers responsible for work safety management. Other production and business units are encouraged to hire registered safety engineers to handle work safety management tasks. Note that the law uses “shall” and “encouraged” rather than “must”. Those who have taken the constructor exam should be aware that the law clearly states that project managers must hold a constructor certificate to work in this role. The competition among various ministries: Still in accordance with Article 24 of the new Work Safety Law, entities that produce or store hazardous materials, as well as mining and metal smelting enterprises, must have registered safety engineers responsible for work safety management. Other production and business units are encouraged to hire registered safety engineers to handle work safety management tasks. However, your requirement that units involved in the production and storage of hazardous materials, as well as mines and metal smelting facilities, must have registered safety engineers infringes upon the interests of the registered civil defense protection engineers (specializing in hazardous chemicals) assigned by the ‘Civil Defense Office’, as well as those of the registered fire protection engineers appointed by the Ministry of Public Security. As well as the interests of safety supervision engineers from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. As someone who works in engineering safety supervision, I am well aware that the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development requires that each engineering supervision project must have at least one safety supervision engineer. However, there is an annual exam for safety supervision engineers organized by the local construction commission or supervision association. It is far from sufficient to meet the extensive needs of engineering projects, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development does not hold a unified national safety supervision examination, which results in the certificates for safety supervision engineers being unable to be used across different regions (I have two such certificates, one from Tianjin and one from Beijing). As a result, the vast majority of supervision companies have begun to use \"Certificates of Registered Safety Engineers\" as a substitute for \"Certificates of Safety Supervision Engineers\". Moreover, some construction companies are now also requiring project managers, deputy managers, and safety management officers to hold a \"Safety Certification\" (China State Construction Eighth Engineering Bureau’s Tianjin branch and China State Construction Sixth Engineering Bureau attempted to do this in the previous two years, but such practices were later halted). If you were a leader at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, what would you think? So while the State Council is reviewing certificates right now, they start attacking each other. Finally, let’s take a look at the Tianjin Safety Supervision Engineer certificate! If one has studied to become a construction engineer, they wouldn’t say such things. In accordance with the Building Law of the People’s Republic of China, the management of a construction project must be handled by a project manager assigned by the construction company, and such a project manager must hold the relevant professional certificate as a constructor in order to be able to carry out their duties. In accordance with the Work Safety Law, units that produce or store hazardous materials, as well as mining and metal smelting enterprises, shall have registered safety engineers engaged in work safety management. The Coal Supervision Bureau was the predecessor of the Safety Supervision Bureau; it has now become a subordinate agency. Also, the Work Safety Bureau has established a Coal Safety Bureau to oversee coal mines; why then is there no bureau to oversee the chemical industry, road transport safety, or engineering safety? Because he can’t control it. He is not like OSHA in the United States” (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), which literally translates to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. There is the capability for independent investigations into accidents. As soon as an accident occurs outside mines, the Work Safety Supervision Bureau sends experts from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Fire Service, and the Ministry of Transport to the scene of the incident. The safety supervision agency should have safety advisors and experts from various fields and specialties. If the State Administration of Work Safety is supposed to oversee all safety matters, then why does the Ministry of Public Security establish certified fire protection engineers? Why does the Civil Air Defense Office create certified protection engineers? Why does the National Development and Reform Commission establish certified chemical engineering engineers? Why does the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development appoint certified safety supervision engineers? And why does the Ministry of Transport appoint transportation safety managers? Don’t you think that the safety officers in these ministries have taken away all the rights of the registered safety engineers from the Safety Supervision Bureau? So, certified safety engineers have now become useless. Please also refer to Chapter 2, Section 1 of the Construction Law of the People’s Republic of China, as well as its judicial interpretations. Section 1, together with the \"Judicial Interpretations,\" totals over ten articles, which provide a solid legal foundation for all the registration-related certificates issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development’s \"Standards for the Qualification Grades of Construction Enterprises,\" whether you run a construction, supervision, or design company, you are required to have constructors, architects, and supervision engineers in accordance with the regulations. Otherwise, you won’t even be able to start a company. And then, does the Work Safety Supervision Bureau have such requirements? It’s possible to run a company without having a safety engineer.